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This year's Pulitzer Prizes are announced Monday. Among the winners: Samantha Powers for her book on genocide called A Problem from Hell, Jeffrey Eugenides for his novel Middlesex about a hermaphrodite, and composer John Adams for his Sept. 11th-inspired music On The Transmigration of Souls. NPR's Laura Sydell reports.

Mexican tenor Ramon Vargas releases In My Heart, a CD of 17th and 18th century Italian love songs sung in the Bel Canto or "beautiful song" style. It's a type of operatic singing characterized by rich tonal lyricism and brilliant display of technique. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Vargas.

Fifty-five years ago, John Steinbeck's best friend died after being struck by a train near Monterey's Cannery Row. Ricketts, a marine biologist, was cast as the fictional "Doc" in Steinbeck's best-selling novel. In a two-part Morning Edition report, NPR's Renee Montagne looks back at one of American fiction's most famous locales and at Ricketts and his lasting legacy.

Songwriter Felice Bryant dies at age 77 at home in Gatlinburg, Tenn. She collaborated with her husband to pen some of the best-known tunes in country music and early rock 'n' roll. Her songs Bye Bye Love and Wake Up Little Susie were Everly Brothers standards, just as Rocky Top became a country standard. NPR's Melissa Block offers a remembrance.

John Lawton's Cold War spy novel, Old Flames, is set in England in l956, during Nikita Khrushchev's first visit to Great Britain. In this story, as Lawton makes clear, the spy is anything but a hero. Lawton speaks with NPR's Scott Simon.

He says he's so indecisive that it takes him hours to order food at restaurants. But when the part of Charles Howard in the movie Seabiscuit landed on his plate, actor Jeff Bridges did not hesitate. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Bridges about his work on the film, opening next week. They also chat about other roles in Bridges' 30-year career.

Art Spiegelman won many awards for his comic book Maus, based on his father's experiences during the Holocaust. His latest work is an autobiographical comic based on his own post-Sept. 11 life. This book is not finding the same success. David D'Arcy reports.

Journalist David Brinkley, whose career paralleled much of the evolution of American television news coverage, dies of complications from a fall at age 82. Brinkley first gained fame in the 1960s co-anchoring NBC's evening news program with Chet Huntley; he later hosted ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. Brinkley won 10 Emmys and three Peabodys during his career. Hear NPR's Cokie Roberts.

During World War II, American soldiers suspected of being Jewish were captured by the Nazis and sent off to a German slave labor camp. Berga: Soldiers of Another War was the final project for famed documentarian Charles Guggenheim, who lost an Army buddy in the camp. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Grace Guggenheim about her late father's last film.

Henry Ford's affordable, mass-produced Model T changed the face of America. But the innovative automaker's failure to look beyond the Model T was nearly disastrous for his company, author Douglas Brinkley tells NPR's John Ydstie. At npr.org, Hear Brinkley describe how Ford Motor Co. avoided that fate by adapting.